A commotion in the lawn caught my eye. There was a flash of gray and white in the pokeberry bush towering 8 feet high in our wild flower garden. Red stalks shook and green leaves trembled. The mockingbird was tending his buffet, the first pokeberries turning black and...
-Miracles in the Garden with Susan Yoder Ackerman
Summer Surprises
The first surprise was a piece of stainless steel chimney apparatus on the ground. That was followed by tufts of insulation. The crowning clue was a dark moving shadow and the flap of huge wings. Three huge vultures. That included the pair that we saw preening and...
Mimosa Confessions
It is dusk. Robby and I are lingering over a shared piece of apple pie as we finish dinner outside by the brick garden wall. Suddenly there is a familiar throaty whirr—and a hummingbird zooms past us. And another. The first perches on the clothesline and rests nearby....
Blowin’ in the Wind
It was just a simple pulley ordered from Lehman’s Hardware, the fabulous place in Ohio where you can find any interesting gadget. I hoped it would change my life. For decades I had longed for a beautiful airy clothesline on which to pin flapping sheets and...
High Summer: Chicory Petals and Blackberry Brambles
In all my Tidewater summers, I have yet to see chicory growing along the road along with the Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod. Go west just a short ways, however, and it starts brightening up the roadside. The arresting blue of a chicory flower has always been...
Crape Myrtle—a Tree for the Ages
I open the attic window and lean out. Crape myrtle flowers billow below me in a pink froth. It’s that time of year. Blooming crape myrtles line grassy sidewalks in small towns everywhere. White church steeples rise out of a sea of pink. Visitors from France gasp at...
Swamp Rat from Lucas Creek
It is midsummer, and wild Turk’s Cap lilies curl back in the blazing sun. Blackberries disappear as fast as they ripen along Lucas Creek, and the orange witch fingers of trumpet vine flash through their brambles above the tide’s murky reach. Bobbing on a stem of cord...
Emergency!! Out of Pickles!
The winter was wearing on to spring, when I had a shock. I was making a sandwich, and used up the last of the bread and butter pickles. It was no big deal. I could just go down into the basement and get another jar. Except that—when I went down the stairs to get one--...
Flower Faces Under Summer Sun
The solstice has come and gone. Now all flowers are summer flowers, including the spring ones that linger. In that category I would place this white false indigo that sprang up in a place it was not planted, blooming in a season it wasn’t intended for. How cheeky it...
Fun with Fungus, Fiddler Crabs and Fireflies
Last week the newspaper reported that June 14 was meant to be Play-Outside Day. At our house, that day comes every day. There’s a garage full of bikes, cars, balls and bats There’s a playhouse for stirring up messy dishes with mulch and rain barrel water And then...